LSU Already National Champions

December 3, 2011

No matter what happens in the BCS national championship game, no matter who it plays, LSU should already be considered national champions of college football.

Now I wouldn’t be saying this for the Philadelphia Phillies or New England Patriots or Vancouver Canucks. No, you can’t say that because those teams and leagues actually determine who wins their championships on the field and not by voters who couldn’t name one player on the field.

What LSU did this season – beating eight ranked teams at the time the two teams played, beating five ranked teams at the time of the game on the road away from Baton Rouge, beating seven teams with winning records (Alabama? 3) – is just mind-blowing. After giving up 14 points early in the second quarter against Arkansas last Friday LSU has outscored its opponents – the No. 3- and No. 10- ranked teams, mind you – 83-13.

LSU didn’t take a week off this year. After clobbering Oregon the opening weekend and then Northwestern St. the Tigers traveled to Starkville to face off against a tough, at least early in the season, Mississippi St. squad in the always-dreadful-if-you’re-the-better-team Thursday night game. LSU won 19-6 and the game never was in doubt. The next week LSU went to Morgantown and handily beat Big East champ West Virginia 47-21. Then, deservedly so, the Tigers got a few weeks to beat up on crappy opponents. Wait, I mean great opponents because they all were SEC teams! Then finally they beat an overrated Auburn squad 45-10 and then dispatched of that other Alabama team 9-6 IN Tuscaloosa. Western Kentucky and Ole Miss were next, and then the two beatdowns of biblical proportions happened against Arkansas and UGA.

Oh yeah. Arkansas entered the LSU game on a seven-game win streak, having dispatched of four ranked teams in the process. Georgia had won 10 in a row before being summoned to its fate in a de-facto home game for the Dawgs at the SEC championship game Saturday in Atlanta.

How many teams schedule two top-25 teams out of conference? Not many. How many teams schedule two top-25 teams out of conference and play those teams on the road? Even fewer. How many teams crush those two top-25, conference champion, BCS-bowl competitors by a combined 39 points? None, except LSU. Oh. And you know what? LSU did that with its backup quarterback.

I have been watching college football religiously since 2006 and can’t remember a more dominant team than this year’s LSU squad. The Tigers shut down five high-powered offenses, held media-darling Trent Richardson 40 yards under his per-game rushing average and 2.4 yards under his per-carry average IN Tuscaloosa, and stomped on the throats of the two opponents who dared take double-digit leads against them.

Even with an offense that many people think isn’t that good (What are they thinking?) the Tigers still managed to score 35 points in every game except two. And in those two games the Tigers held their opponents to an average of six points. The Tigers, like, never allow a punt return, have the best punter in the country, have a cornerback/safety/punt returner/animal who returns punts for touchdowns like he gets to marry a Kardashian with each one returned and who should be in New York City next weekend.

The LSU defense is the best in the country; it’s 10.5 points allowed average is second to Alabama’s. But when LSU was playing Oregon and West Virginia – two high-powered offenses – Alabama was playing Kent St. and North Texas. Not exactly the ’27 Yankees there. The sentiment – the one that Gary Danielson was blubbering on about over and over today during a game that Alabama wasn’t even playing in – that Alabama played some monumental schedule this year is asinine. Yeah its defense is good, I guess great. But the Tide played five teams that ranked 101st or worse in scoring offense this year. Note: There are only 120 teams in the FBS.

Let’s get away from that talk though. LSU has done enough to inform voters of its superiority to every team in the country. I don’t care if LSU loses to Alabama in the national championship game or to Oklahoma State or to Southwest Technical College of Colorado. College football is a different sport than any other one. You can’t have a split national champion in any other sport, college or pro. But you can have one in college football. And that’s why I wrote this post, even before the last games have been played. Because regardless of any result from here on out the LSU Tigers are your (or mine, at least) national champions of college football in 2011-12.